TY - JOUR A1 - Caliendo, Marco A1 - Kritikos, Alexander A1 - Rodríguez, Daniel A1 - Stier, Claudia T1 - Self-efficacy and entrepreneurial performance of start-ups JF - Small business economics N2 - Self-efficacy reflects the self-belief that one can persistently perform difficult and novel tasks while coping with adversity. As such beliefs reflect how individuals behave, think, and act, they are key for successful entrepreneurial activities. While existing literature mainly analyzes the influence of the task-related construct of entrepreneurial self-efficacy, we take a different perspective and investigate, based on a representative sample of 1,405 German business founders, how the personality characteristic of generalized self-efficacy influences start-up performance as measured by a broad set of business outcomes up to 19 months after business creation. Outcomes include start-up survival and entrepreneurial income, as well as growth-oriented outcomes such as job creation and innovation. We find statistically significant and economically important positive effects of high scores of self-efficacy on start-up survival and entrepreneurial income, which become even stronger when focusing on the growth-oriented outcome of innovation. Furthermore, we observe that generalized self-efficacy is similarly distributed between female and male business founders, with effects being partly stronger for female entrepreneurs. Our findings are important for policy instruments that are meant to support firm growth by facilitating the design of more target-oriented offers for training, coaching, and entrepreneurial incubators. KW - entrepreneurship KW - firm performance KW - general self-efficacy KW - survival KW - job creation KW - innovation Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-022-00728-0 SN - 0921-898X SN - 1573-0913 PB - Springer Science CY - Dordrecht ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Caliendo, Marco A1 - Graeber, Daniel A1 - Kritikos, Alexander A1 - Seebauer, Johannes T1 - Pandemic depression BT - COVID-19 and the mental health of the self-employed JF - Entrepreneurship theory and practice N2 - We investigate the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on self-employed people’s mental health. Using representative longitudinal survey data from Germany, we reveal differential effects by gender: whereas self-employed women experienced a substantial deterioration in their mental health, self-employed men displayed no significant changes up to early 2021. Financial losses are important in explaining these differences. In addition, we find larger mental health responses among self-employed women who were directly affected by government-imposed restrictions and bore an increased childcare burden due to school and daycare closures. We also find that self-employed individuals who are more resilient coped better with the crisis. KW - self-employment KW - COVID-19 KW - mental health KW - gender KW - representative longitudinal survey data KW - PHQ-4 score KW - resilience Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/10422587221102106 SN - 1042-2587 VL - 47 IS - 3 SP - 788 EP - 830 PB - SAGE Publishing CY - Thousand Oaks ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Caliendo, Marco A1 - Fossen, Frank M. A1 - Kritikos, Alexander T1 - Personality characteristics and the decision to hire JF - Industrial and corporate change N2 - As the policy debate on entrepreneurship increasingly centers on firm growth in terms of job creation, it is important to understand whether the personality of entrepreneurs drives the first hiring in their firms. Using the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), we analyze to what extent personality traits influence the probability of becoming an employer. The results indicate that personality matters. Risk tolerance unfolds the strongest influence on hiring, shortening the time until entrepreneurs hire their first employee; the effect size of a one-standard-deviation increase in risk tolerance is similar to that of having a university degree. Moreover, individuals who are more open to experience, more conscientious, and more trustful are more likely to hire upon establishing their business. Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1093/icc/dtab062 SN - 0960-6491 SN - 1464-3650 VL - 31 IS - 3 SP - 736 EP - 761 PB - Oxford University Press CY - Oxford ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Caliendo, Marco A1 - Fossen, Frank M. A1 - Kritikos, Alexander T1 - What Makes an Employer? T2 - CEPA Discussion Papers N2 - As the policy debate on entrepreneurship increasingly centers on firm growth in terms of job creation, it is important to better understand which variables influence the first hiring decision and which ones influence the subsequent survival as an employer. Using the German Socio-economic Panel (SOEP), we analyze what role individual characteristics of entrepreneurs play in sustainable job creation. While human and social capital variables positively influence the hiring decision and the survival as an employer in the same direction, we show that none of the personality traits affect the two outcomes in the same way. Some traits are only relevant for survival as an employer but do not influence the hiring decision, other traits even unfold a revolving door effect, in the sense that employers tend to fail due to the same characteristics that positively influenced their hiring decision. T3 - CEPA Discussion Papers - 13 KW - employer KW - entrepreneurship KW - business venturing KW - firm growth KW - employment growth KW - personality Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-437360 SN - 2628-653X IS - 13 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Caliendo, Marco A1 - Fossen, Frank A1 - Kritikos, Alexander T1 - The impact of risk attitudes on entrepreneurial survival N2 - Risk attitudes influence the complete life cycle of entrepreneurs. Whereas recent research underpins the theoretical proposition of a positive correlation between risk attitudes and the decision to become self-employed, the effects on survival are not as straightforward. Psychological research posits an inverse U-shaped relationship between risk attitudes and entrepreneurial survival. On the basis of experimentally validated data of the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), we examine the extent to which risk attitudes influence survival rates in self-employment in Germany. The empirical results confirm that persons whose risk attitudes are in the medium range survive significantly longer as entrepreneurs than do persons with particularly low or high risk attitudes. Y1 - 2010 UR - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/01672681 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2010.02.012 SN - 0167-2681 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Caliendo, Marco A1 - Fossen, Frank A1 - Kritikos, Alexander T1 - Trust, positive reciprocity, and negative reciprocity Do these traits impact entrepreneurial dynamics? JF - Journal of economic psychology : research in economic psychology and behavioral economics N2 - Experimental evidence reveals that there is a strong willingness to trust and to act in both positively and negatively reciprocal ways. So far it is rarely analyzed whether these variables of social cognition influence everyday decision making behavior. We focus on entrepreneurs who are permanently facing exchange processes in the interplay with investors, sellers, and buyers, as well as needing to trust others and reciprocate with their network. We base our analysis on the German Socio-Economic Panel with its recently introduced questions about trust, positive reciprocity, and negative reciprocity to examine the extent that these variables influence the entrepreneurial decision processes. More specifically, we analyze whether (i) the willingness to trust other people influences the probability of starting a business; (ii) trust, positive reciprocity, and negative reciprocity influence the exit probability of entrepreneurs; and (iii) willingness to trust and to act reciprocally influences the probability of being an entrepreneur versus an employee or a manager. Our findings reveal that, in particular, trust impacts entrepreneurial development. Interestingly, entrepreneurs are more trustful than employees, but much less trustful than managers. KW - Entrepreneurship KW - Trust KW - Reciprocity Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2011.01.005 SN - 0167-4870 VL - 33 IS - 2 SP - 394 EP - 409 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Caliendo, Marco A1 - Fossen, Frank M. A1 - Kritikos, Alexander A1 - Wetter, Miriam T1 - The Gender Gap in Entrepreneurship: Not just a Matter of Personality JF - CESifo economic studies : a joint initiative of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität and Ifo Institute for Economic Research N2 - Why do entrepreneurship rates differ so markedly by gender? Using data from a large representative German household panel, we investigate to what extent personality traits, human capital, and the employment history influence the start-up decision and can explain the gender gap in entrepreneurship. Applying a decomposition analysis, we observe that the higher risk aversion among women explains a large share of the entrepreneurial gender gap. We also find an education effect contributing to the gender difference. In contrast, the Big Five model and the current employment state have effects in the opposite direction, meaning that the gender gap in entrepreneurial entry would be even larger if women had the same scores and the same employment status as men. (JEL codes: L26, J16, D81, J24, M13). KW - entrepreneurship KW - gender gap KW - personality KW - decomposition analysis Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1093/cesifo/ifu023 SN - 1610-241X SN - 1612-7501 VL - 61 IS - 1 SP - 202 EP - 238 PB - Oxford Univ. Press CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Caliendo, Marco A1 - Fossen, Frank A1 - Kritikos, Alexander T1 - Personality characteristics and the decisions to become and stay self-employed JF - Small business economics : an international journal N2 - Based on a large, representative German household panel, we investigate to what extent the personality of individuals influences the entry decision into and the exit decision from self-employment. We reveal that some traits, such as openness to experience, extraversion, and risk tolerance affect entry, but different ones, such as agreeableness or different parameter values of risk tolerance, affect exit from self-employment. Only locus of control has a similar influence on the entry and exit decisions. The explanatory power of all observed traits among all observable variables amounts to 30 %, with risk tolerance, locus of control, and openness having the highest explanatory power. KW - Entrepreneurship KW - Personality KW - Big five KW - Risk tolerance KW - Locus of control Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-013-9514-8 SN - 0921-898X SN - 1573-0913 VL - 42 IS - 4 SP - 787 EP - 814 PB - Springer CY - Dordrecht ER - TY - INPR A1 - Caliendo, Marco A1 - Kritikos, Alexander T1 - Searching for the entrepreneurial personality New evidence and avenues for further research T2 - Journal of economic psychology : research in economic psychology and behavioral economics Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2011.06.001 SN - 0167-4870 VL - 33 IS - 2 SP - 319 EP - 324 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Caliendo, Marco A1 - Wittbrodt, Linda T1 - Did the Minimum Wage Reduce the Gender Wage Gap in Germany? T2 - CEPA Discussion Papers N2 - In many countries, women are over-represented among low-wage employees, which is why a wage floor could benefit them particularly. Following this notion, we analyse the impact of the German minimum wage introduction in 2015 on the gender wage gap. Germany poses an interesting case study in this context, since it has a rather high gender wage gap and set the minimum wage at a relatively high level, affecting more than four million employees. Based on individual data from the Structure of Earnings Survey, containing information for over one million employees working in 60,000 firms, we use a difference-in- difference framework that exploits regional differences in the bite of the minimum wage. We find a significant negative effect of the minimum wage on the regional gender wage gap. Between 2014 and 2018, the gap at the 10th percentile of the wage distribution was reduced by 4.6 percentage points (or 32%) in regions that were strongly affected by the minimum wage compared to less affected regions. For the gap at the 25th percentile, the effect still amounted to -18%, while for the mean it was smaller (-11%) and not particularly robust. We thus find that the minimum wage can indeed reduce gender wage disparities. While the effect is highest for the low-paid, it also reaches up into higher parts of the wage distribution. T3 - CEPA Discussion Papers - 40 KW - Minimum Wage KW - Gender Wage Gap KW - Regional Bite Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-530464 SN - 2628-653X IS - 40 ER -